


just one more thing

by phantisma



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-09
Updated: 2008-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:25:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantisma/pseuds/phantisma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jayne remembers his first kill, and all that came with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just one more thing

From “Serenity”

_“I don’t get it. How's a guy get so wrong? Cutting on his own face, raping and murdering. I'll kill a man in a fair fight...or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight...or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman...or if I'm getting paid. Mostly only when I'm getting paid.”_

*****

Sometimes it ain’t just one thing. Sometimes it was just that one more thing. And then there ain’t nothing left.

Don’t matter what’s right or wrong.

Don’t matter where the whole gorram thing started. There come a point when there was just one choice. And when that choice was a gun in his hand, Jayne Cobb had always known ‘xactly which end of that gun went where.

They’s those who say he was born this way, violent, uncouth. His Mama always said he was destined for something, to be a great man or at least a man no one would raise a hand to.

He figured that to be on account of his fiercesome manner and his handsome good looks. And that was all before he was fourteen.

Course, it mighta had something to do with the fighting. Jayne always could find a fight. Didn’t take much. His name started a few. People insulting his mama for naming him a girl’s name was a popular start to Jayne pummeling on faces for a long, long time.

It weren’t no easy life, the two of them scratching out a living on a moon where half the men folk were drunkards and the other half run off to fight in their gorram war. Left a whole lot of women folk to do the work.

His own father had left before the war, and his mama never did tell him where or why. She just told him that it was okay, because she loved him just the way he was.

She gave him a gun of his very own on his fourteenth. Told him it was so he could defend her, defend their stuff. He would take that gun out behind the house and practice, shooting at old cans and crap he stole. He got good.

By the time he was fifteen he could shoot a tin off the wall without hardly looking. He wore his gun proud, on his hip like a man.

He went to town to take care of his Mama’s business, mailing off letters and selling off things so as to buy them food. Sometimes he’d stop in the bar, have him a drink. Play some cards. His daddy was a card player. Some said that was why he left, owed too many folks money.

That was where he met her. The love of his life…well, at the time anyhow. She was beautiful. She sauntered into the saloon one late afternoon when he really needed to be getting on home, fanning her face with some lacy thing, her hand laying across he sweaty breast.

Jayne downed his drink and folded, gathering his winnings and shoving them into a pocket. He slicked his hair back as he made his approach, the men at the table calling after him, telling him she was too rich for his blood.

She smiled sweetly as he leaned in next to her, putting his empty glass on the bar.

“A little young to be drinking so early in the day, aren’t you?”

Jayne’s mouth seemed disconnected from his brain, and no matter how hard he tried to be cool, he stuttered over a response until he spit out. “Almost sixteen.”

“I’m Marisel.”

He managed to recover something of his dignity, standing up a little straighter when the barkeep handed over his drink and a glass of water for the lady. “Jayne.” He brushed the dirt off his hands on his thigh and offered it to her. She chuckled when she put her hand in his and shook it.

“Unusual name for a guy like you. I figured it was Mack or Bubba or something.”

He wasn’t sure if he should laugh or hit her, so he settled for downing his alcohol, making a face as it burned. “I gotta git. Work to do.”

“I’ll see you around then, Jayne.”

He waved at the door. He was confounded. She wasn’t supposed to be like that. All gussied up and fancy in her citified clothes, she was supposed to be subtle-like and blush at his attentions. He didn’t know how to respond to her being all forward and starting the conversation.

He stalked home, thinking about her pretty black hair, all shiny and put up and curled, and her blue dress that clung to all the right bits. By the time he reached the front door, he had himself worked into a right frenzy, stormed past his Mama and her gossiping lady friends to lock himself in his room and deal with the not so little problem in his pants.  
He shoulda known better. The girl was way outta his class, but she turned him about. She would be waiting on him when he came in, sitting outside the post office with her parasol and her smile. She chattered away, following him around town and sweet talking him into buying her sweets or drinks at the saloon.

Her name was Marisel and she’d come to his little moon with her Daddy from Persephone. Like him and his Mama, it was just the two of them. Only, he got the impression that she didn’t like her Daddy as well as Jayne did his Mama.

“I’m not as proper as you might think Jayne,” she confided one late afternoon. They were strolling toward the edge of town, with Jayne aiming to walk her home, if she’d let him. “I grew up in a town like this, all rough edges and bloody elbows.” She held her arm up and laughed, like she was remembering some tussle that bloodied her elbows.

“A girl pretty as you should be all proper and pretty.” Jayne countered, smiling awkwardly. He wasn’t good at the talking.

She laughed and slid her hand onto his arm. “I like you Jayne. You’re not like the boys on Persephone.”

“Marisel! Girl, get your ass home.”

She stiffened, pulling her hand away from Jayne and turning.

“Did you hear me? Who the hell is this?”

Jayne turned too, watching this angry man coming at them. He was barely as tall as Jayne, his dark hair cut close to his head, his face bruised, his hands waving wildly around him. “This your guy? You fucking him?”

“Dad—“ Marisel held up her hands like she was warding him off. “This is Jayne…he’s a friend.”

“A friend? What kind of friend?”

“Just a friend.” She sort of pushed Jayne away. “I’m going home. I’ll make dinner.”

“Damn right you will.”

Jayne made a move to get around the guy, but his hand reached out and grabbed his shirt, yanking him in close. His breath smelled of cheap alcohol and garlic. “You fucking my girl?”

Jayne frowned at him, yanking free. “No sir. We’s just friends is all.”

“See that you don’t. I’ll kill ya’ myself.” Jayne headed toward home at a stiff walk. He wasn’t running, he just wanted to make sure Marisel was okay, and if he moved fast enough, he might catch her.

 

 

Next time he saw the girl, she had bruises on her arm. She hid ‘em okay under her lacy shawl thing, but Jayne saw them. Jayne knew. He had done that. Her father.

“Ain’t right.” Jayne said as they sat outside the saloon, watching two men tussle over some stupid thing or other.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, adjusting the shawl.

“Still ain’t right. A man hitting on a girl.”

“He’s my father. Just trying to teach me to be proper.” She settled her hand on his thigh…up high and close to his hip. He stopped arguing, mostly cause he couldn’t actually think about anything other than her hand and its position near his dick. The fight was breaking up, both men bleeding and retreating as the whistles told the law was coming. “You want to know a secret, Jayne?” She leaned in all sneaky like. “I don’t really want to be proper when I’m with you.” Her hand slid across his thigh, right down between his legs, rubbing down along his dick.

Jayne stood abruptly. “I have to go.” His voice was way too high and it squeaked a little as he stepped away awkwardly. It was hard to walk very fast as hard as he suddenly was…but he knew better than to let that go anywhere, not when her daddy had already promised to kill him.

 

 

Thing was, she kept turning up with fresh bruises, on her arms, her neck, her cheek, and every time she was a little more grabby, her hands boldly leading him out of his private resolve until three months after he met her, Marisel was the first girl he ever kissed…and it would have been just that, but she climbed in his window after supper, crying and begging him to touch her, make her feel safe, whole…and he didn’t totally understand what she was saying, but he understood when she dropped her dress and stood in front of him naked as the day she was born.

Had anyone asked him up until that very moment if he was still a boy, he’d have denied it, but when she lifted his dirty, calloused hands to her breasts and drove him down onto the bed with kisses and dirty talk and more skin than Jayne had ever naturally seen before, he became a man, as corny as that sounded.

He’d have done anything for her. Anything at all.

It took her nearly a month to work up the courage to ask though. They were laying together on his little bed in post-coital after-glow (her words for the part after they finished the fucking) and she lifted her head, her hair cascading over his chest, smelling of jasmine. He really loved her hair.

“Jayne?”

“Yeah.” He was even less verbal post-coital than he was before coital and she smiled at him, chasing away what words he had.

“Would you do something for me?”

“Anything.” He meant it. Solid. No go backs.

She laid her head back on his chest. “Have you ever killed a man?”

He considered how to answer that, but with Marisel he only knew how to tell the truth. “Not yet. Reckon I will one day. I got a gun, you know. Mama gave it to me.”

Her finger trailed over his stomach, the nail scratching lightly at the tender skin. “Would you do it if someone paid you to?”

He pressed his elbows into the mattress and she turned her head to look up at him, her blue eyes all full of sad. “Depends, I suppose.”

“On what?”

“On why, I guess. I don’t deny they’s just some folks what need killing…and sometime them that should be doing it can’t.” He laid back down.

“What if he was a bad man. Hurt people for no reason…raping and beating people. Would you do it then?”

Jayne had a sneaking suspicion this weren’t no philosophical question now. “Did he touch you?”

She sat up, pulling away from him. “He don’t mean to, I don’t think. He misses my mother something awful.”

“Don’t give a man a right to go forcing hisself on his own gorram daughter.” He reached for her, but she pulled away, leaping from the bed and crossing to the window she’d climbed in through. “Marisel—“

She turned from the window, her arms wrapped around her stomach. “I think…maybe…I might be…pregnant, Jayne. And, I can’t bear it…everyone will know what he’s done.” She was crying and he felt like he been sucker punched, his head thunking against the wall as he sat back, staring at her.

“You…he…” Jayne shook his head, climbed out of the bed to put his arms around her. “I’ll take care of you…of him too.”

She pulled back, wiping her face and looking up at him. “I’ll pay you. I don’t have much, but something…me…whatever money he has when it’s done.”

“Shh…don’t you worry on it. Just stay here. Let me take care of everything.”

He settled her down and left her sleeping in his bed. His hands shook a little as he checked his gun, made sure it was loaded and ready. He checked in on his Mama, told her he was going out to deal with a little problem, and headed into town.

Marisel’s daddy played cards most nights, and Jayne had little trouble finding him. Only problem was, the lying sack of shit wouldn’t even look up from his rotten hand. Jayne waited until he folded, then grabbed his shoulder. “Mr. Gray, I’d like to have a word with you. Outside.”

The man shoved him away. “Run along home, boy, the big boys are playing now.”

Jayne drew himself up tall and straight. “Do big boys fuck their own daughters, sir?”

Gray’s eyes got wide as he turned, standing slowly. “What did you say, boy?”

“Marisel told me everything. I come to make it right.”

All around them the saloon was stilling, people taking interest now as Gray’s hand fell on his gun. “Is that so?”

“It is.” Jayne held his gaze, his heart pounding erratically. He honestly didn’t know how this would play out.

“You calling me out?’

“I am.” Jayne glanced at the door, then back at Gray who lifted his shot of rotgut whiskey and downed it.

“Outside then.”

Gray headed through the doors, followed by half the bar. Lawman stopped at Jayne’s side. “You sure about this boy? You step out those doors, you’re bound to the duel.”

Jayne just nodded, taking the whiskey from Lawman’s hand and downing it to steel his resolve. “No man should touch his own gorram daughter. Sir.”

The streets were lined with people watching. Jayne took his place, watching Gray. He’d never drawn on a living man before. His hand twitched, hovering over his gun.

That fight weren’t never gonna be fair, not once the men he’d been cheating knew the truth. Gray drew first, Jayne drew faster and when Gray fell, there were at least four bullet holes in his chest.

No one ever confessed to firing those other shots, and no one could say for sure which shot killed him. All four struck the heart, all four.

Jayne didn’t say nothing to no one. Put his gun in his holster and headed for home. It was a good thing he done. His Mama was proud. Called him a hero.

Mirasel was gone when he got back. Next day he found a package on the front step, a couple of guns, a deck of cards, a little cash. Everything Gray owned when he died. In it was a note from her. Saying goodbye.

*****

 

“I don’t get it. How's a guy get so wrong? Cutting on his own face, raping and murdering. I'll kill a man in a fair fight...or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight...or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman...or if I'm getting paid. Mostly only when I'm getting paid.” Jayne tossed the scrap metal after the body, his free hand sliding into a pocket, fingering over old paper, checking to make sure Kaylee weren’t paying no mind.

Sometimes it ain’t just one thing. Sometimes it was just that one more thing. And then there ain’t nothing left.

Don’t matter what’s right or wrong.

Don’t matter where the whole gorram thing started. There come a point when there was just one choice. And when that choice was a gun in his hand, Jayne Cobb had always known ‘xactly which end of that gun went where.


End file.
